Stand by Me (58 page)
Brendan looked at his brother, his sister and her husband.
‘Of course we will,’ said Greg. ‘You know we won’t throw you to the wolves, Brendan. But I’m damned if I’m happy about what’s happened.’
‘I understand,’ said Brendan. ‘I really do. And thank you.’
‘I’m not saying I’m happy either,’ said June.
‘You don’t have to,’ Brendan told her. ‘Just don’t ...’ He sighed.
‘I can’t forgive you for what you did,’ said Barry. ‘But I’ve never said anything bad about you and I won’t now.’
‘Thanks,’ said Brendan again. ‘Thank you all. And Domino, most of all, thank you for understanding.’
Dominique said nothing.
‘I’ll support you, son,’ said Maurice. ‘But you’ve got to knuckle down. Take whatever punishment you get.’
‘Of course.’ Brendan turned to Kelly. ‘What about you, honey?’
Kelly looked up from her mobile phone, where she’d been reading a text from Charlie, relieved that the events of the previous night hadn’t, as she’d feared, stopped him from getting in touch with her again.
‘You know I’ll always support you,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, Dad. But I’m struggling with the desertion thing.’
‘I know,’ said Brendan. ‘I knew as soon as I’d gone that it was a mistake, but then I couldn’t come back.’
They heard the crunch of tyres again and exchanged anxious looks.
‘The papers haven’t heard already, have they?’ asked Lily tremulously. ‘I don’t want all that stuff to start over.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Greg walked out of the conservatory. A moment later he returned, his face dark and brooding, followed by Gabriel and Emma.
‘Gabriel.’ Lily got out of her seat and put her arms around him. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘You too, Lily,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re well.’
‘Better,’ she replied. ‘Better for knowing that Brendan is back, even though things will be tough.’
‘Of course,’ said Gabriel. ‘But sometimes you have to face your troubles.’
‘Indeed you do,’ said Greg tautly. ‘What are you doing here, Brady?’
‘Emma asked me to come down with her,’ he said. ‘After Domino’s party—’
‘Party?’ June looked at Dominique curiously. ‘You were having a party? In Dublin?’
‘A small party,’ Dominique said.
‘Glad to hear that you weren’t pining for your husband, anyway.’
‘June!’ Barry looked at her in annoyance.
‘I’m just saying!’ June’s voice was filled with injured innocence.
‘It was a party for a friend of hers,’ said Emma.
Dominique shot her a glance.
‘Domino is perfectly entitled to throw parties,’ said Greg. ‘She couldn’t put her life on hold for ever; nobody can.’
‘It was a great party,’ said Kelly. ‘With loads of really nice people at it.’
‘Kelly, the party isn’t exactly relevant right now,’ said Dominique. ‘What we need to focus on is what happens to us as a family. The whole family,’ she added hastily. ‘Not just you and me and Brendan.’
‘I thought we’d agreed we were standing by him,’ said Lily.
‘We are,’ said Greg.
‘That’s good to hear,’ Gabriel told them. ‘Look, I know there’s been a lot of disunity among . . . among all of us, and maybe for lots of reasons, but this is a time for everyone to support each other.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Lily spiritedly.
Although the rest of them still looked far too angry for her liking. And much to her surprise, Greg looked the angriest of all.
The return of Jia, who’d taken Lugh and some of his friends swimming for a couple of hours, was the signal for the gathering to split up. Lily, Maurice, Barry and June departed together, leaving Greg, Emma, Gabriel, Dominique, Kelly and Brendan behind. Kelly asked Lugh if he’d like to play a game on his PlayStation, and he nodded eagerly.
‘Thanks, Kelly,’ said Dominique as her daughter led her cousin out of the room.
‘Would anyone like anything to eat?’ asked Emma.
‘Maybe a sandwich?’ suggested Gabriel.
‘I’ll see what I can manage.’ Emma went into the kitchen. After about a minute, during which nobody said anything, Dominique got up and followed her.
‘Why on earth did you bring Gabriel here, Emma?’ she demanded when she’d closed the kitchen door behind her.
‘He got Brendan home,’ said Emma. ‘Surely he’s entitled to know what’s going on?’
‘I would’ve told him what was going on,’ said Dominique. ‘He’s my brother, after all.’
Emma took a deep breath. ‘I need to talk to you about Gabriel,’ she said. ‘Not right now, though. Sometime when there’s just you and me.’
Dominique’s shoulders sagged.
‘I’m not sure I want to hear whatever it is you have to say.’
‘I need to tell you all the same,’ said Emma.
‘All I really want is for things to be the way they were before,’ said Dominique dismally. ‘When everything was perfect.’
‘It was never perfect,’ said Emma. ‘And you know it.’
The three men were sitting silently in the conservatory.
Greg was staring out over the garden, watching a pair of swallows as they swooped between the trees. Gabriel was reading the information label stuck in the potted plant on the table beside him. Brendan was studying his fingernails and picking at his cuticles.
‘The hurling team did well this year,’ he said eventually. ‘I kept an eye on them on the internet.’
Greg turned to face him. ‘They got lucky,’ he said shortly. ‘They didn’t deserve to win some of their matches.’
‘Better to be lucky than smart,’ said Brendan.
‘Yeah.’ Greg nodded. ‘I guess so.’
‘I ran out of luck myself,’ said Brendan. ‘Everything I’d touched had turned to gold and I thought it would go on for ever.’
‘Nothing is for ever,’ said Gabriel. ‘Not good times. Not bad times. But if we have people who love us and care about us we can cope. And that love and care stays with us always.’
‘That is, of course, the kind of hypocritical shite I’d expect from you, Brady,’ said Greg. ‘You know you’re talking bollocks as usual. And that’s no help to anyone.’
Brendan looked at his brother in surprise.
‘You’re being very harsh,’ he said. ‘Gabriel told me some home truths. I’d got myself into a mess and I didn’t know how to get out of it. He helped me and I’ll always be grateful to him.’
‘That’s Gabriel for you,’ said Greg. ‘Always ready to help the Delahayes. Always ready to dip his toe in the murky family waters. Not only his toe, of course.’
Brendan stared at his brother and his brother-in-law, aware that there was a simmering anger between them.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Ah, your brother has some issues with me,’ said Gabriel. ‘We’ve never really dealt with them. I was hoping, Greg, that we could have a talk later, just you and me.’
Once again Brendan stared at both of them.
Then Greg laughed bitterly. ‘You want to give me the opportunity to do what I didn’t before?’ he asked. ‘Punch your lights out?’
‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’ asked Brendan.
‘That hypocritical bastard slept with my wife.’ Greg felt the years of pent-up anger erupting and he couldn’t stay silent. ‘Which I think gives me a very good reason to deck him.’
Brendan’s jaw dropped while Greg glared at Gabriel, his body tense.
Two things had enraged him the night Emma told him about her unfaithfulness. The first was that he’d shaken hands with Gabriel Brady earlier in the day and thanked him for the support he’d given to Emma and her family in the difficult days of Maura’s illness. The second was that he realised that Emma had been pregnant with his child when she’d betrayed him with the priest.
‘It wasn’t great with him, you know,’ she’d sobbed after her confession. ‘It was just . . . he was my dream man, Greg. In my head, anyway. I needed to . . . I had to ...’
‘You didn’t have to do anything with that hypocritical git!’ He’d spat the words at her. ‘What you had to do, Emma, was stay faithful to me. But you couldn’t.’
‘It’ll never happen again.’
‘No,’ said Greg. ‘It damn well won’t.’
He’d wanted to throw her out of the house there and then, but how could he when she was pregnant with the baby he so desperately wanted? She’d been utterly repentant afterwards, trying really hard to make things right. But it was impossible. He’d trusted Emma. He’d trusted Gabriel. And they’d made a fool of him.
Now Greg could feel the rage coursing through him. He’d almost slugged Gabriel when he’d opened the door to them, but Emma had hurried past saying that it wasn’t the time or the place for arguments and that Gabriel had a right to know what was going on in his sister’s life. And Greg had been too stunned to stop her, or him. Then he’d thought that he didn’t have any damn right to stop him anyway, because the house was Emma’s now, not his. Another thing to blame Brady for. It was his fault that they were getting a divorce.
‘You slept with Emma!’ Brendan stared at Gabriel with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. ‘You slept with my brother’s wife?’
‘It was a long time ago,’ said Gabriel.
‘Is that why you and Emma have separated?’ Brendan turned to Greg.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, come on, Greg. You can’t entirely blame me for that,’ said Gabriel. ‘There’s a lot more to it than one night with me. You made her life a misery.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘She always felt you cared more about Domino than her. You looked out for her in a way you never looked out for your own wife. As though somehow Emma was perfectly capable of managing on her own but Domino wasn’t. And after the . . . the incident with me, you never stopped blaming her. Yes, I behaved dreadfully and disgracefully and that’s something I’ve had to live with and something I can’t ever forgive myself for. But you made her feel perpetually guilty, and nobody can live like that.’
‘Of course I care about Domino. She’s part of our family and she went through a really bad time and she matters to me,’ said Greg, aware that Brendan was looking at him tensely. And aware, too, that neither he nor Gabriel knew about the night he’d come to Domino’s in Dublin. He suddenly felt a rush of the guilt that he knew Emma must have felt when she’d told him about Gabriel. But, he reminded himself, he’d done nothing in the end, while Emma had utterly betrayed him.
‘Emma felt guilty because she
was
guilty,’ he told Gabriel. ‘And just because she came clean about it doesn’t exonerate her.’
was
guilty,’ he told Gabriel. ‘And just because she came clean about it doesn’t exonerate her.’
‘You should have broken up with her then, if you couldn’t live with it,’ Gabriel told him. ‘You should have told her to leave. You could have left yourself. But you didn’t. You told her that you forgave her but you punished her every single day afterwards.’
‘She slept with you!’ cried Greg. ‘When she was pregnant. She deserved to be punished.’
‘For ever?’ asked Gabriel.
Greg clenched his jaw.
‘If you forgive somebody, you forgive them unconditionally,’ Gabriel said.
‘Is this one of your sermons?’ asked Greg. ‘Forgive and forget? Have a group hug? Offer each other the sign of peace?’
‘This family needs some peace,’ said Gabriel.
‘Yeah, well, you’ve helped a lot.’ There was derision in Greg’s voice. ‘You know what would give me peace, Brady? Giving you what you deserve!’ He took a step in Gabriel’s direction.
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